Slow Tennis? Don’t Blame It On the Rain

ByTom Perrotta

Associated Press

More outer courts could help Wimbledon get through its heavy load of first-week matches more quickly.

When showers returned to Wimbledon at around 8:15 p.m. local time Tuesday night, 12 matches were left unfinished. But don’t blame the rain. The problem isn’t the weather, it’s modern tennis. In brief: It takes forever.

We’ve already seen a nearly six-hour Grand Slam final this year, at the Australian Open. That followed a nearly five-hour semifinal. At the French Open, numerous matches were delayed during the first week, when skies were blue. And when the weather in Paris did take a turn for the worse, the tournament didn’t conclude on Sunday for first time since 1973. This happened even though the French Open already has an extra day compared to the other three Grand Slam events (its first round begins on Sunday, not Monday).

There wasn’t a drop of precipitation at Wimbledon Monday, yet two men’s singles matches, two women’s singles matches and two men’s doubles matches couldn’t be completed. Imagine the surprise of Ana Ivanovic and Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez when they picked up the order of play for Tuesday: Their match was scheduled for “not before 5:00 p.m.” … somewhere. The tournament didn’t assign them a court, because too many other matches had to be completed first. The same went for Dominika Cibulkova and Klara Zakopalova. Both of those matches didn’t even begin Tuesday and are now scheduled for Wednesday.

Wimbledon isn’t ignoring the problem. For the first time this year, the tournament is starting matches on outer courts (Courts 2-12 and 14-19) at 11:30 a.m. for at least the first eight days of the event. From 1992 through last year, those matches had started at noon. Centre Court matches now start at 1 p.m. on every day except for the day of a final, and Court 1 starts at 1 p.m. every day. Many of those matches started at 2 p.m. before 2001. From 1919 to 1982, all matches on all courts started at 2 p.m.

Here’s the trouble: Wimbledon isn’t adapting fast enough—and maybe it can’t. As tennis has moved to a grueling baseline game that stresses fitness, matches are taking longer and longer. And players are taking more time to recover between points, too. An extra half hour a day often won’t be enough to make up for that, even without rain, in the early rounds of an event. Though the rest of the Grand Slam tournaments start play at 11 a.m., Wimbledon’s grass complicates matters. There’s dew in the morning, and a longer day on the lawns could beat them up. The same goes for putting more matches on Centre Court, where there’s a roof. By the time the tournament concludes, the final might be a de facto replay of the French Open final – played on dirt.

There are possible resolutions that Wimbledon will have to consider. Another roof would help, and there could be one, albeit 10 years from now or more. More outer courts would be a plus. Another tradition that could well go by the wayside is best-of-five-set men’s doubles matches. No other Grand Slam has that, and those take a lot of time. Johnny Perkins, a spokesman for the All England Club, said the tournament would consider further action.

“Tennis is an unpredictable sport, and while matches are generally getting longer, we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves,” Perkins said. “We’ll see how we go with the extra half an hour.”

At least there’s one roof over Centre Court. Now, if only Wimbledon would use it. Instead of closing the roof Tuesday evening and continuing a match between Caroline Wozniacki and Tamira Paszek (it was 2-2 in the first set), the tournament told the players to come back Wednesday. The official reason? This match wasn’t scheduled for Centre Court in the first place, so it was up to the referee to decide whether it ought to continue. And then there’s this: It takes 25-40 minutes to close the roof and condition the air inside. Even for a roof, it was too late.

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